Mama, You’re Crazy

My Baby Girl…well, I don’t know if it’s an official one, but, she’s on a date.

The only reason I let her go is cause I know this boy’s parents and I know him. Curfew is 9:00.

I don’t know if it’s “ok” or not. Part of me thinks “Oh my gosh…she’s 14″ then the other, who remembers 14 very clearly, although I don’t remember any fellers in Brentwood, TN wanting to take me out.

Heck…even if I’d have had any potential suitors at 14, my mother would not have allowed anything as silly as going out or anything. Anytime there was any talk of us dating , she’d say stuff like “I don’t want no boy hanging around here all the time.”

She was really mean to the Basketball Coach and I was 18 when I started dating him. Seems like I remember she was pretty not nice to the Engineering Brother In Law when he and Gastrica started getting serious.
I never understood why she was so bothered when those situations came up..I figured she knew we were having sex. I figured that was her whole hangup….until just a few years ago when I learned that she had other husbands before my dad.

She still doesn’t know we know this. I think she was possibly afraid for us. I’m sure she was. She knew that we were in different dating situations than “Do you like me? Check yes or no”. She knew what we were going to run into.

For whatever reason, she has chosen not to share with us her life, BB (before Biff) and really, that’s ok. I don’t take the same attitude with my kids. I hope they can learn from my experience, rather than have me sitting on my soapbox, telling them “You don’t need to date…what is wrong with you? Are you a sex maniac or something?” (She never said that but the way she acted, I felt like I was nawtee or something.)

She got over being mean to the EBL and he’s like Super Son In Law. Kinda amazing he hung around. She actually digs both of her sons in law. Mr. Smiff digs her and appreciates her and understands her in a unique way.

I sometimes wonder what my future son and daughters in law will be like. This may sound crazy, but, I’ve been praying for whoever they are for years.

I’ve tried to teach the HT stuff about boys, what’s acceptable treatment from a boy and what isn’t (my mother never felt it necessary to fill me in on any of that stuff)…I’ve tried to be as open as I can about stuff like sex, tempation, all that.

The day I introduced her to the Basketball Coach, she knew the whole story. I don’t want that girl going into something like that as naive and clueless as I was. I think the whole experience would be in vain if I couldn’t impart to her, especially (and the boys too) the impact stuff like that can have on you in the longterm.

I do know that she most definitely will get her heart broken many times before she runs into her Mr. Right. She will probably do stupid things that she’ll look back and cringe at like I do.

Still, I refuse to let her try to feel her way through some of the most important times in her life, alone, with no direction or loving advice, as opposed to the approach my mother took…I like to call it the Eisenhower Era Approach to Dating. My mom came from a totally different era where girls were taught that “Nice girls don’t” and that was that.

No. Way. Not my daughter. She’s entirely too intelligent and I would do her no service to not be open and honest with her and let her learn stuff in a way that helps her wind up pregnant at 16.
One thing I hope she doesn’t do is spend all of her school years tied up with one boy. I can remember people in high school who did that. That’s nuts. You have your whole life to be with one person.

I stress and stress to her that she does not have to have a guy in her life to be whole…a boyfriend is not going to be any sort of magical cure to any insecurity or mean she will be “happy” at any given moment.

She has a good friend who tends to lean towards the “I Have To Have Boyfriend” syndrome. We’ve talked a lot about that and she appears to see that’s kinda not so good.

We do have a pretty good communication thing happening. Since the big “Grounding of 08″ occurred a couple weeks back, I have sensed our relationship as Mom/Daughter has matured and grown. Yeah, she’s rolled her eyes at me since and told me I was weird, but, I sense a positive sort of vibe since that whole event.

It dawned on me today that I have spent a ton of time around her lately and in her world, around her peers more than I ever have. It’s fun watching her find herself.

There for awhile, I thought we were going to be like Naomi and Wynonna…I guess we still might.

5 Trackbacks / Pingbacks

[…] Dating fun idea wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt…with no direction or loving advice, as opposed to the approach my mother took…I like to call it the Eisenhower Era Approach to Dating. […]

is search for wordpress free themes and download them and save them on your desktop. log into you new blog by using the details that you receive through email. after logging in you will find a tab on the left hand…

myths and lies to sell. in some instances the untruths have been so blatant as to be comical. in others the copy has been designed to mislead even the sharpest minded consumers. it’s a good thing then that in today’s technological…

be considered a pillar article because it is specific and is written in a “how-to” format or lesson. an article like this has very long term benefits and is not time sensitive. i suggest that you write many of these pillars…

your writing and always keep in mind how important what you are doing actually is. writing with a smile on your face will come across in your work. if you wasn’t already aware by now i am a big lover of…